


Mellontaur

by werpiper



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Asexuality, Coming of Age, Complete, Disabled Character, Evil Creatures, Gen, Immortality and Death, Orphans, Parents and Children, Please Don't Hate Me, Taking up Arms, Wood-elf Culture, elves are asexual outside of marriage, mention of Elrond/Celebrian, that is canon jrrt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-10-16 16:17:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10574937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/werpiper/pseuds/werpiper
Summary: How a wild child became the founder of Mirkwood's Guard.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Droit du Seigneur](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1396450) by [werpiper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/werpiper/pseuds/werpiper). 



> This is a gen version of an E-rated fic, remixed thus for someone who didn't care to read the pairing. Some text will be preserved unaltered, some deleted entirely, some created new so that this story still hangs together of itself. I hope it pleases! Comments, as always, are life.

On a late-summer evening, Tauriel's father came to her at the creek where she was fishing for trout with her hands. They smiled at each other, but kept silent until she'd landed two more fish. She splashed back to shore and they embraced, her head tucked underneath his chin.

"This fall will mark your twenty-second begetting day," he said, "and Thranduil our king requests your presence in his halls, to live for two years until you reach your formal maturity."

Tauriel stepped back to meet her father's grey eyes. She had been born and raised in the wild Greenwood, rarely seeing another elf besides her parents, and never Thranduil. "Why would I go?"

Her father took out his knife and sat down to clean the fish, and after a moment Tauriel joined him. "To learn in his halls," said her father after awhile. "There are many elves there, and many kinds of wisdom -- ways of art, and magic, and fighting, ways of living far beyond your mother's and mine. Thranduil is a great lord, older than this age, and the protector of our great forest. You should meet him, and them, and discover more of yourself."

Tauriel hummed. She loved her family, and her life, and she supposed herself; they sang and danced, gathered and hunted, knapped and wove, slept in trees or caves and knew no need. Halls and king meant nothing to her. But she was wise enough already to understand that meaninglessness showed a lack in herself, and she huffed out a sigh as she realized it.

Her father nodded. "You will, then," and Tauriel nodded back. "All right. We'll send a bird with your message."

Her mother met them a little past sunset, and they ate the trout sliced thin, with gathered greens and radishes. Then Tauriel rose and her parents stood with her, and they bowed to each other in turns, swaying low to show their regard. They joined hands in a circle and danced along the creek to its origin, a rocky spring in a grassy little glade. There they rested through the night, cuddled warm together with the sound of clean water bubbling nearby. At dawn, her father called a bluejay and sent it to the Halls with the answer, yes. And for the next few months, the family slowly wandered eastward beneath the trees.

Twelve days in advance of the begetting day, Tauriel's mother disappeared before dawn. Her father shook his head at her when she asked, and Tauriel contained her impatience. After midnight she returned, running beside a deer, both laden down with bright-dyed fabrics and jewelry and new metal blades. "Gifts," she said to her daughter briskly. "Materials from your lord and king, and crafting by your family. We have raised you to your land, and not to company, but you will go before them in finery to be seen." Tauriel looked at them -- all barefooted and near enough to bare, as the weather was still warm and they preferred only their light woven blanket over them at night -- then met her mother's eye, who laughed. "It is a little foolish," she agreed. "But it will be easy for them to see your face and what you wear, and be longer before they can begin to know your heart. We need not oppress them to work immediately," and Tauriel laughed too.

They spent the next days cutting and sewing, braiding and bickering and trying things on. Tauriel had always known her parents were beautiful, but when she saw them arrayed she thought of the night sky shimmering with aurora, and it left her stunned. She wondered if everyone in the King's Halls would look like that, and also why they would bother.

On the anniversary proper, they started moving at midnight, walking by dawn on well-trodden paths that wove among great and stately trees. From time to time an elf would approach and join them, greeting her parents by name and being introduced by name to Tauriel: Lassehen, Lind, Baraglin, Belleth, Legolas, Hallothon. Her parents walked in front, and the other elves trailed behind. At noon her mother began to sing, a long winding melody without words, and the strangers joined in harmony. Tauriel's heart beat faster, and without thinking she began to sway and skip, until in late afternoon she danced across a white stone bridge into Thranduil's keep.

He stood on a balcony above, as if he had been waiting for her. A crown of red leaves circled his silver brow, and the eyes under his dark brows smiled. "Welcome," he called, "welcome, welcome home."

The travelers stopped, though Tauriel could not be still, swaying from foot to foot. He descended along steep stairs carved into the stone wall, a silver robe swaying around his body, taller even than her father, taller than the stranger Legolas. He called to her parents by name, but walked to Tauriel directly, meeting her gaze and taking her hands. "I am Thranduil," he said, "and I see you are a dancer. Shall I call you Lilladess?"

Dancing woman. Thranduil's face was warm with delight, but Tauriel felt a sudden caution, of someone who would name her at first glance, as she swayed in a new white gown. "I am Tauriel," she said clearly, "Daughter of the forest."

Thranduil's eyes widened a little, and she wondered if she had somehow spoken ill in giving him her own name. But he bowed to her, and said, "I am very glad to meet you, Tauriel. Will you come into my halls, which are the home of your people, and also your own?"

She nodded, and for some reason she could not fathom, felt herself blush. He pulled her ahead of her parents and walked by her side as they entered the halls -- like great caverns all of stone, but carved into the likenesses of branches and leaves. More and more elves gathered around them, more than Tauriel had met before in her life. Her parents greeted each one by name, and Thranduil nodded from her side. At last they stopped by a wall, where Thranduil opened a door with a flourish -- Tauriel found it a bit startling -- and he gestured them inside. "Rest here as long as you like," he said, "we will feast in your honor tonight." He bent at the waist, straightened, and walked away without looking back, and the rest of the strangers bobbed along more slowly in his wake. Tauriel's father drew her into the chamber, and her mother closed the door behind them.

It did remind her of a cave, a sort of dream of one, with high windows letting in sunlight and rushes on the floor. There was a bed, high and deep with cushions and blankets and furs. There were cabinets like storage-boxes on their sides, with more doors. She could hear water rushing through narrow channels behind the walls, smell spices cooking nearby. Her father threw himself down backwards on the bed, and his wife and daughter piled on.

"Ada," Tauriel whispered, dazed. "Nana. Are these really my people? All of these...?"

They held her, stroked her hair, whispered back, "Yennin, they would be, if you will have them." Her mother's sudden chuckle. "If you would not, you still belong to the forest, and to the great world, and to us."

Her father leaned up on one elbow, also smiling. "I am glad to see them," he said, "most of them, anyway. You will learn for yourself who you like and who you do not, for your own reasons. Thranduil loves you already, because you are one of his people, and he wishes you to love him in return. Two years he has asked of you, and you have given him yes for that. The rest is yet untold and seasons to come."

The last was something her father said often, and Tauriel sighed. "Sit up," said her mother. "We will want clean clothes for the feasting, and I would have you rebraid my hair."


	2. Chapter 2

There was so much talk at the feast that Tauriel could hardly make out a word of it.

She sat at Thranduil's left hand, in a chair at a long table, with her mother and father on her other side. From time to time he would address her, asking if she liked this or that, and Tauriel would nod, speechless and nearly overwhelmed. Her parents seemed to know everyone, and endless strangers came to smile at her and speak with them, smiling at them. Tauriel felt strangely jealous, and despite the crowd and her family, oddly alone.

Past Thranduil was Legolas, one of the elves who had followed them in from the forest, and beyond him were scores of elves whose names she had been told and already forgotten. They all seemed to be talking at once, a susurrus of voices like wind in the trees. The food kept coming, brought out dish after dish -- venison roasted with nutmeats, a salad with seven kinds of greens and nine kinds of flowers, three different baked breads -- Tauriel's father had baked sometimes, in winter when a fire was enjoyable -- and now honeycomb served dripping with something thick and white. It smelled delicious, but Tauriel had already eaten more than she usually would in three days. She licked the white stuff off her fingers -- it was sweet, cream and roses along with the honey. She set it aside, wondering if she could somehow eat it later.

Music had played throughout the meal, with people rising and taking instruments for awhile, then settling back into their seats. When Tauriel's mother went to the musicians' corner and took up a drum, Tauriel nearly knocked her chair over in her haste to follow. She bowed to her mother, skirt trailing behind her, and began clapping her hands in a counter. Other elves joined in the polyrhythm, and Tauriel felt a new pleasure in it, so many musicians elaborating the same theme, so many instruments and voices. She stepped into dance again, not swaying but stamping, her soft new shoes quieter than she would have liked on the rush-lined floor.

Moments later, Thranduil rose and came to her, offering his hand. Tauriel took it uncertainly, but Thranduil matched her every move with grace and eerie ease. His boots were heavier, and she felt almost as if she played him like an instrument, leading his steps to make the sounds she liked. A small smile played at his mouth sometimes, and his eyes met hers whenever she looked him in the face. Mostly she preferred to watch her mother, her strong fingers playing across the drumhead, rolling trills along the metal edge. At a toss of Tauriel's head, her mother sped up the rhythm, and Tauriel dropped Thranduil's hand and skittered away, moving backwards in a flurry of steps that kicked the rushes to rattling. The drum went into a snapping frenzy, and Tauriel spun faster and faster, ending with a high leap like a shout. She stopped and wrapped her arms around her mother's neck, burying her face in her mother's hair.

She realized that might not be appropriate for a nearly-grown woman, and stood up just in time to see Thranduil bowing to them, and the other elves as well, graceful as candle-flames in a breeze. The hall had fallen silent. Tauriel bowed back to everyone, though her mother remained upright, one hand on her daughter's. "You brighten our halls," said the king. "It is so good to have you here, my lady Raina, my lady Tauriel," he turned back to the table, where Tauriel's father sat silent and still, "my good man Andaer."

"Your halls are beautiful, and your generosity boundless," said Tauriel's father smoothly. "The evening has been long and lovely." He rose and came to stand with his wife and child, mouth smiling, eyes slightly hooded. "My loves," he said to them, not quietly enough to seem private, "shall we retire for the night? For we are simple people," he addressed Thranduil again, "and more used to the song of nightjars than the glorious harmonies of so many of our own kind."

Thranduil bowed again, and said smoothly, "Of course; your chambers still await your pleasure. I would ask only that Tauriel walk with me briefly before she goes to her rest." It was not pronounced as a question, but her parents nodded. Thranduil took Tauriel's hand, and she allowed herself to be drawn away from her parents, out of the feasting-hall, and down a long corridor where eventually the ceiling fell away, and they were alone underneath the moon and the stars of late night.

"You dance beautifully, child," said Thranduil quietly, still walking, but placing both hands upon hers. Tauriel could think of nothing to say, so she nodded her thanks. "I thank you for gifting us with that. In return," he glanced at her sideways, catching her eyes, "you are invited to learn all the wisdom gathered in my kingdom, whatever arts you find suit you. Tonight there was music and food -- rather different from what one eats in the forest, I think." She heard him almost-laugh and liked it, and almost laughed along. "We have gardens with growing things from all over the world, and herbalists knowledgeable about their many characteristics. We have a great many weapons, for hunting and guarding and war. A library with histories and poetry and many kinds of lore. We are jewelers and crafters and cooks, soldiers and gatherers, singers and healers and makers of wine." He seemed to hesitate, but then spoke on: "And we have ways of living in this world, to know it and survive it and nurture it, as is the gift of our people. Will you stay here, daughter of the forest, after all?"

"I will," said Tauriel forcefully. Under the stars with one silver-haired king, she felt strong enough to face the crowds, to listen for meaning among the seething voices. She knew she would miss her parents; she felt certain she would not dwell for long in the cavernous rooms, as if it were always winter. But winter was coming, and she thought that two years only seemed so long because she was herself so very young. "Thranduil. You will be my king, and I will learn as best I can."

He did smile then, and one of his hands moved up along her arm, slid gently through her hair, and came to rest on Tauriel's cheek. He held her gaze again and answered, "I am glad."


	3. Chapter 3

Tauriel slept in her parents' embrace for an hour or so; then she awakened, and they talked long of little things -- trees and animals she would miss, the uses of napkins and knives. At dawn they stirred from the deep bed and the two older elves selected a few items from the heap of gifts -- some cloth, two knives, a set of arrowheads. "This is your time here," said Tauriel's mother, "and we must leave you to it. If you have need of us, only come, or send a message. You will be in our minds and hearts always."

Tauriel threw her arms around them. "As you are in mine," she said, almost unable to imagine being without them, knowing that she very soon would be. They kissed her, and led her back to the dining hall, having explained that food was collectively distributed there -- no more would Tauriel be directly involved in procuring or preparing every meal she ate. They broke their fast together on hot linden tea and bread studded with bright berries, then walked together to the gates, and Tauriel watched her parents disappear back into the forest.

The stone floor and soft shoes felt strange on her feet, and in a wild moment she nearly raced after them, but she put a hand on the carved wall and steadied herself. Two years had been her agreement; two minutes had not passed. She breathed slowly, making a mental catalogue of the scents: stone, and unfamiliar elves, and mushrooms ripening quite nearby; burning wood, and many she could not identify. Then one note seemed a little familiar, and she turned around to see the elf called Legolas approaching her.

He was much taller than herself or her parents, pale-haired, and he smelled a little like Thranduil too. He met her eyes and stopped a pace further away than arm's reach, nodded to her and said, "Tauriel, I bid you good morning. My father the king asks if you would have me as your escort for the day, to help you become familiar with our home." His face remained blankly polite, but he hesitated briefly before adding, "I have never lived for long in the forest. I imagine our ways must seem strange to you, as yours would be unfamiliar to me."

Tauriel nodded. She thought he was clothed heavily for the weather, with boots and leggings and a shirt with a vest over it, and she could smell the fur of some large animal on him. "I cannot even begin imagining," she admitted. "Can you show me the simplest things first? Where food is gathered, where water runs?"

Legolas's brow furrowed slightly, but he nodded and took her hand. It seemed the simple things were not simple at all. Water came from several springs, one which ran hot and rich with minerals and was piped to particular chambers for bathing, another being filtered through gravel-beds before becoming potable. The river carried away overflow and waste, but some was filtered further first, and some fed down to greenhouses and stocked fishponds. The greenhouses and fishponds supplied some of the food, but more was gathered afield or hunted, and there were a few cultivated crops beyond the halls. Then there was trade with the Men settled downriver, in particular for imported fruits and wines.

He gave Tauriel an orange, and managed not to laugh when she bit into the bitter skin. She did not really mind the taste, though the sweet inside was a revelation. "It must take much learning," she declared. "But that is what I was promised, and I will have it from the rind to the seed."

Legolas paused with his hand halfway to his mouth. "Bravely put," he said, "and I wish you well with it." He put down the slice of orange he was holding, "Tauriel," he said plainly, "Some of your lessons here may be harsh, and some frightening. I would offer to help you, if you should find any need."

She found the comment itself discomfiting, though she had no reason to expect Thranduil's halls to always be easy, and certainly she had been frightened before. But it was good to know someone closer than her parents chose to look upon her kindly. "Warn me," she said immediately, "of something you think I would fear?"

Legolas huffed a sigh, and considered. "My lord father," he said slowly, "is very old, and has lived through many times of struggle and grief. My mother died in one of them, and he has sworn to remain in Middle-Earth and protect our forest for as long as his strength may last, denying himself the peace of sailing West. He... he has scars, which can be frightening, and he would have us his people become as strong as himself."

Tauriel regarded him in confusion. "My Nana fought a dragon at Thranduil's side," she answered, "and lost an eye and a hand. What is frightening about a scar?"

Legolas looked back in equal confusion, then barked a short and surprisingly bitter laugh. "I saw your Nana," he said, "and I think perhaps she is braver than my lord father. I should not pretend I have your measure, either; I beg your pardon, Tauriel."

"You spoke in kindness," she answered him, "and I am glad to have heard you. So I learn there is sweetness here in these halls, between whatever rind and seed." She took another bite, and Legolas smiled back.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> divergence in the relative timing of events, from both canon and inspiring-fic.

A grey-and-white bird flew in from the west. Tauriel noticed because she had not seen its kind before, nor heard so harsh a cry. Not an hour later, Thranduil rode forth from his halls alone and clad in black, the scars on his face as stark as new wounds.

The bird stayed. Legolas sat beside it, feeding it scraps of bread, and they seemed to speak from time to time. His brows were lowered, which gave his face a grim ferocity Tauriel had never seen in him; she knew Legolas as someone who smiled even over a sword. Considering, she settled herself nearby with a sword to sharpen. She did not know what to do for her friend, but she wished she could do something. If he chose a confidant or a fight, she would be convenient.

When the sun fell low, the animal spiraled up into the air and away, and Legolas lay down where he was. Tauriel pondered; if Legolas wanted privacy, would he not have withdrawn? So she came closer, and let her curiosity ask: "What word came with its wings?"

"Celebrian has sailed." This meant nothing to Tauriel, so she waited. "She has left Middle-Earth for the Undying Lands," he said eventually, "where elves are known to find peace. She was Lady in Rivendell, but was taken by orcs years ago and ill-treated. Her sons rescued her, and her husband healed her. But she has not been well," he said, and stopped speaking with tears in his eyes. Tauriel waited again while he wept. At length she put her hand on his shoulder, and felt him tremble as he said, "Now Thranduil rides to Celebrian's husband, Elrond Half-Elven --" Legolas looked for Tauriel's nod before he finished, "-- to ask him to stay, to keep his stronghold west of the Misty Mountains. My father has the right, as he has remained and ruled despite my mother's death." Tauriel nodded; her mother had known his, and told her the peculiar tale. Legolas rushed on: "Only I fear Elrond will not hear him. Elrond may yet go after his wife. And my father might go with him." He was shaking now like a leaf in the wind, teeth chattering as he ground out, "He rides to the west even now, and what if he keeps going? He may not return."

Tauriel lay down beside him, setting her sword aside, and Legolas turned to her and buried his face in her shoulder. She patted his back, feeling awkward. She was unused to embracing anyone besides her own family, and she had never seen Legolas and Thranduil touch for longer than a dance. But his tears fell on her neck, and she was not willing to let him go. "Would you be king then?" she asked, and he shook his head hard.

"There is no one like Thranduil," he said. "I am a fair enough archer and tracker, and I would give my life for Middle-Earth, if it had any use for that. But a ruler needs to live for his people, and I have not sight nor strength for such craft, though I have studied my father every day." His tears ran out as his blue gaze lifted to Tauriel's.

"Then you must practice such craft as you have," she said, as it seemed inevitable enough to her. "We would do without a king. I never saw one until this year, nor have I needed him." If Legolas thought to argue with that she would take the quarrel.

"Middle-Earth needs our king," said Legolas flatly, "and we need Elrond as well, to hold our lands against evil. But evil has taken the Lady of Rivendell, for all that she survived the time of torment. It is the way of elves to go to the Undying Lands when love is lost, to meet again and be in peace. Celebrian walked away from her husband, and her mother and daughter and sons besides. The love of the living has fallen before evil."

"Celebrian has fallen," she corrected him, and hazarded on, "but love made her family before that. Thranduil stayed for love of you, did he not? My mother told me you were only small when yours was slain."

"My father loves me better than he loved my mother, and our people better than me, and the whole of Middle-Earth more than all of elvenkind together." His smile was strange and thin. "There are those who say he has no heart, or that he will not find it again outside the Undying Lands."

Tauriel shrugged. "My Nana said Thranduil loves me, and would wish me to love him in return. I do not truly know his heart, nor do I expect my mother could; how can anyone say who another loves, or how well? But I think it matters that he stayed for you. If he cannot persuade Elrond, I do not think it more likely that Elrond could persuade him. Our king made his choice and has kept it since. He must have walked and ridden west as often as east in all these years."

Legolas laughed at that, and if the sound was also thin and strange, still it was laughter and Tauriel smiled. "I wish I had ridden with him," said Legolas. "If I were beside him, I would remind him of his choice and claims of love."

"You shall stay beside me instead," she said, "and keep the promise he made to my family. He spoke of living in this world, not of leaving it. Stand up now and help me learn -- what strange new fruit or meat shall we share tonight?" She rose herself and pulled Legolas along, and he laughed a little clearer as they walked together into the forest.


	5. Chapter 5

Thranduil returned with winter, wearing blue and silver and a face as smooth as snowfall. His people celebrated his homecoming, then the long nights and stars seen through bare branches. Tauriel liked dancing better than most, but she was not skilled at it; she did not enjoy memorizing sequences of patterns and partners, nor resist when the music called her to some new step or spin. She proved an indifferent cook, herself just as happy to tear meat with her teeth and eat leaves and berries raw. But she was already good at tracking and hunting, and at gathering nourishment from the fallow forest; she could find a squirrel's caches, or steal from a bear's without disturbing its sleep. And when Baraglin put a short staff into her hands and told her how to raise it, she learned that she loved to fight.

She had only wrestled bare-handed with her parents; weapons were tools for killing beasts. But in the songs they sang over firelight were old tales in which elves shot orcs with bows and arrows, or carried swords into battle. She did not like the rumors of war, or of creatures fell and evil, or brothers turned against one another in bitterness and anger. But lifting a sword herself was thrilling, and landing a solid blow felt like a joyous shout. The first time she knocked Legolas off his feet she gasped -- but when he tumbled back and stood up laughing, her laughter in response was wild and hot. After that she never wanted for teachers or partners in practice. She took her meals with others who loved battle and chivalry, and listened to their stories and imagined herself among their ranks.

With a handful of those colleagues she ventured throughout the forest, learning Mirkwood's reach and Thranduil's borders. They found wild wargs and killed them, and once goaded a stone-troll away from its hiding-place to be slain by the rising sun. They took its treasure -- an astonishing hoard of jewelry and bright metal, even coins of Men and dwarves; Tauriel was given a long knife from the hoard with some ceremony. She also hunted meat, being more fond of eating it than most. When she had killed a half-dozen hares in their dazzling winter white, she tanned them in secret and sewed three warm hoods.

In any other year, such a project would have been part of her family's celebration of the Longest Night, and she and her parents would have worn them until the snows melted in spring. This time she made them despite the uncomfortable awareness that she was unlikely to see her mother and father, let alone to spend a night sharing songs with them. When the Longest Night came, Thranduil mounted an elk and led his people dancing through the snow; at dawn they returned to the Halls and climbed to the rooftops to bask in the sun. Many gifts were given, and Tauriel received a great number, from elves she knew and elves she did not -- a dagger, a glaive, and a set of hair-sticks from strangers, a bottle of wine from Thranduil, a jar of raspberry preserves from Lind. There seemed to be no particular symmetry between givers and recipients, and she distributed the hoods with a purposeful randomness: one to Lassehen and one to Legolas, and one to a lady she did not know, but whose dark skin, black hair, and grey eyes struck her as a pretty contrast to the furs. Each one thanked her and clasped her hands, and she missed her parents' arms around her.

By spring her feelings had grown from longing to loneliness. She was surrounded by people more hours than not, but none of them knew Tauriel as she was used to being known. She did not speak of it until Thranduil noticed and asked, early one morning when they crossed paths near the dovecote; he bowed first and stood out of arm's reach while they spoke. When she had told him, he asked if she would like to visit her family, taking with her a scouting group -- they could update the kingdom's maps, he said. She felt her face grow bright as she told him yes, and when he put out a hand, she took it in hers. She might have kissed his fingers, she was so glad and grateful, but he pulled away too soon, though his smile warmed her.

They left three days later, a handful of elves walking west, carrying ink and paper and compasses as well as hunters' tools. Lassehen was the eldest, a small quick woman who never stopped singing. For the first few weeks she gave them the history of the places they travelled, the trees that had grown since last she had visited and the ways the creeks had changed. Twice she recited tales of battles fought where they stood, naming each of the dead; once she pulled back branches to reveal the remains of an abandoned house, where once travelers had stopped to rest as they crossed the Wood. "But fewer and fewer travel through," she said. "Our King does not love strangers whose passage disturbs the wood. Mortal folk are careless with fire and footfalls, and have little love for the land. This is our place to guard and tend. Evil is never gone for long enough," she said, and looked sad.

Her words were prophetic. A week's walk later they were in lands Tauriel knew best, and she took over the lead and the tales, conscious of her ignorance and her youth. They met her favorite family of bears, saw the grove where the sweetest cherries grew in blossom, and swam in the little pond that held her first memories of water. But two days later they came to a pass where the trees had never come into leaf, and ice hung heavy and unseasonable from the boughs. "This is wrong," said Tauriel, stopping in her tracks, "this should not be here, this is not as it was...." and Lassehen came forth and took her hand.

"This is evil," said the elder, and the elves around her nodded and touched their weapons. "We will fight it," she said, and Tauriel nodded too as the ice touched her heart.


	6. Chapter 6

They stalked on through ice and snow, terrible to see in the bright sunshine of spring. Nothing grew and the beasts had fled. Elves do not feel cold as such, but Tauriel shivered, and wished she had kept the fur hoods.

At dusk a day later, they crested a hill and looked down upon a battle. The sun's long shadows were broken by licking flames, each as high as a tall tree, rounded in a rough circle in the valley. At its center crouched a great wyrm. It was no natural creature of the forest, but looked like something forged from ice and iron, with scales and many-jointed legs and wings that looked too small to carry such a monster aloft. Its head was shaped like a wolf's, but as long and broad as a wolf entire, with fangs outsized even for that. Its eyes were green and narrow, and the flames reflected green off its sides. It opened its jaws and blew out a wind like all of winter with a sound like a broken bell. The fires around it swayed, and some distance away a tree cracked apart and fell. A single figure danced before it, hands lifting and falling, then rising again.

"Ada!" cried Tauriel. Her father did not hear her, or in any case did not respond. But the flames spread upwards as he gestured, as red as the setting sun, and the worm turned its head away. "They're fighting," she said, unnecessarily, as the elves beside her looked on in horror. "Come, we must help him."

"Help how?" asked Veryan. Tauriel did not know him well, but she felt hatred as she rounded upon him. "Should we bring him firewood?"

Tauriel had no answer. She knew this was not her father's magic -- he was young, and not so much wiser than herself. Her mother must have lit these flames, and more, her Nana must be lost for Ada to be left to tend them as best he could. She looked around at her traveling companions, saw Lassehen's mouth in a hard line. "Fired wood," said the old elf, as if correcting Veryan's pronunciation. "Ironwood or locust -- it may be sturdy enough. Who has a two-edged knife? Tauriel, yours is the strongest bow."

Tauriel glanced at her weapon -- it was the biggest bow she could pull, and she had selected it not so purely for hunting as for practice. The other elves had scattered, searching the inner slope for a fortunate hardened branch, except for Alya who was stripping the handle from her dagger. Below them, Andaer and the monster continued their struggle, and the wind roared now with heat and then ice-cold. Tauriel watched transfixed until Lassehen touched her shoulder and held out a single great, rough arrow. It had no fletching, and its point was the dagger's blade.

"Not from here," said Tauriel, as the problem became simple in her mind. "There's too much wind. I should find the lee of it in the land, and shoot from there."

The others nodded, and Tauriel led them along the slopes. She carried the arrow in her arms, turning it over between her hands, trying to get a sense for its flight -- it was heavy and stiff, and the dagger-blade very sharp, unlike any she had shot before. Twice she stopped and nocked it, and once she pulled and sighted, but its path was uncertain and each time she set down her weapon. Night had fallen, and it would have been dark but for the high flames and the subtle green sheen from the worm. Another time she raised her bow, and this time everything was right: she pulled, sighted, and released in a breath. The arrow flew through the flames and struck into one ice-green eye. The monster shrieked, a carillon shattering apart, then turned and turned in on itself. The earth around it cracked like ice, and the beast fled beneath it. The hillsides slid down like water.

Tauriel lost her footing and fell, then scrambled up again to run, calling again "Ada! Ada!" Her father was on his knees, a small figure folded beneath the flames he had tended. She reached him on the unsteady earth and threw her arms around him, and they clung together as ice shattered and fire fell to ash.

Their companions came around them and built a camp, bringing food and water and laying out blankets, then singing softly in turns. The smoke and steam cleared from the sky, leaving the light of spring stars.


	7. Chapter 7

Tauriel slept in her father's arms. She was exhausted and triumphant, and in some tiny corner of her heart, felt betrayed. When she woke she saw her father gazing into her face, and the tracks of tears beneath his hollow eyes. They clung to each other, and Andaer let go first.

The sun was well up and the day was warm. A kind of vernal pool had appeared below them, surrounded by the burnt-out trunks of trees, and a flock of ducks settled there quacking. The other elves were clustered at its edge and feeding them lembas. When Tauriel sat up, Veryan hurried over, and offered the waybread to her and her father.

Tauriel ate hungrily, but her father scarcely touched his share, preferring to press morsels into his child's mouth. The others came and sat around them, speaking softly to one another of ink and paper and clouds. When Tauriel was sated, Andaer led her down to the water's edge, and hesitantly they both knelt and drank. It tasted of springtime and fire, and there was a cool green glow to its depth.

"Will you come back with us to Thranduil's halls?" asked Lassehen, leaning over, and Tauriel was fiercely glad that she did not have to ask that question herself. But Andaer's green gaze held her own long before he replied.

"Yennin, do you need me?" he asked, as if Tauriel had spoken. She took his hand, felt the fine tremble in his fingers.

"Ada, I have missed you," she said at last. "I came to find you, and Nana as well. And what I found is, is --" her voice broke and stumbled, and her father and elder began to murmur before she recovered, "-- is heroic." She swallowed hard. "I know there is evil, and that it comes to our woods betimes. I have slain wargs and seen the track of an orc, in this one year gone by. But I wish that my time had been spent differently, that I would have been with you when this creature came," and her voice broke because she was crying.

"Nay, my child," he answered, pulling her into his arms, and she felt how bony and weak his grip had become. "For if you had been with us, you might have been slain, or fallen at your mother's side, and never come with help for me. The birds fled first, I could not send --" and he was weeping too, their tears falling upon one another's face.

"And yet we came," said Lassehen, her voice a balm. "It was Tauriel's notion to seek, and her shot that slew the enemy. Our wood is safer for your fight, and for her choices too."

"And my mother's death," said Tauriel tonelessly, because she was afraid nobody else would say it at all.

"For our loss of Raina," said Lassehen clearly. There was a moment's silence, and then all the elves joined in to a high, mourning keen. It might have been mere formality for some of them, who had only met Tauriel's mother once or twice in Thranduil's halls. But Andaer's voice and their daughter's rose like wolves howling, and the song echoed through the mountains around. When they quieted, birds were singing in the valley again, and a bluejay repeated the mourning notes.

"I don't want to go to Thranduil," said Andaer, as if there had been no other conversation. "I don't want anything of kings, nor any more of Middle-Earth. I want my wife," he added, plaintive as a child. "I know she is waiting for me in the West."

Tauriel said nothing, torn inside -- she was promised to Thranduil for another year; she missed her mother, and yet still loved the world.

"Then shall the boatman bear thee," said Lassehen at length. Tauriel looked up at the old elf, beseeching for she knew not what, and Lassehen nodded fractionally. "We will walk with you to Mirkwood's end," she said, "and give you over to starlight there."

Andaer waited until Tauriel looked back to him before he nodded. Lassehen gave them her hands as they rose, and the other elves gathered around them. Someone sketched the new pool as they rounded its north side, and someone else wrote a history of the worm, asking Andaer for details from time to time. Tauriel only half-heard any of it. Her father's hand was in hers, as familiar as her own, and every step they took pushed them apart. So they went day after day, first among trees and then along a hard, stone-paved road that cut straight west.

The night they reached the gate, the elves made a festive camp. A wine-bottle was opened, and reed-flutes newly cut. Andaer bowed to his daughter, and they danced together, hour after hour, until Andaer finally smiled. Tauriel leapt upon him with a fierce joy and they wrestled and laughed, the others joining in. When they were all exhausted, Tauriel lay upon her father, and he whispered, "You are grown strong, my child, and I am glad and proud. There is nothing I have done in life that was better than to be Ada to you."

"There is no one I have loved better, nor been gladder for," she whispered back, and for a moment her heart was full. But then she was sad again, and added, "I know Nana does not wait for me, although I miss her still."

"I think she does not," Andaer agreed. "I think she is glad for your life, and your growth, and would be gladder to wait for long years uncounted than to see you before your time. And I am blessed," he held Tauriel's gaze, "that you saved me and our forest from the cold-drake, and that I have held your hands again. You have grown strong and bold, and by your hands I did not die, but lived to sail."

He came to his feet, and pulled his daughter after, though Tauriel was sad and weary still. He led her through the forest gate and to the open lands beyond. Above them shone the infinite stars, such as Tauriel had never seen in the forest, so many that no part of the sky was in darkness, but all ablaze with many-colored lights. "This is the starlight of forever," he said, as Tauriel looked upwards in shock, "and the same stars will shine on you here as on us in the West." The world fell away around them, the colors of the stars blending into white. Tauriel drew a breath in pure joy, and felt the tears drying from her face.

"It is so beautiful," she said to her father, and felt his hand hold tighter to hers.

"We were made to love the starlight best," Andaer said. "And I would that you find all kinds of love in your life. You have known the love of your parents, and perhaps your kin and king, and it gladdens me now to see you feel the love of stars. But I wish more for you -- the love of the trees and the land in their seasons, of allies in war and partners in dance, collaborators in work and thought, and the pleasures of touching and holding another in love. Even," he smiled down upon her, "if you are so blessed, the joys of children," so that she had to smile at him.

"I was blessed to be your child," she answered fervently, and added in a rush, "and the stars shine upon the hour of our parting." Andaer lifted Tauriel in his arms, and she buried her face in his hair. He smelled like ashes and spring rain. When she pushed away to her own feet he let her go, and she went to her knees as he turned and walked away. When the sun had risen, the company of elves found her and led her back through the forest gates. Together they walked along the stone road, beneath the heavy, blossoming trees of spring.


	8. Chapter 8

Lassehen sent a bird ahead, and Tauriel was received as a hero in Thranduil's halls. A formal mourning was made for her parents, candles lit and songs sung of their deeds. Tauriel learned a great many things about Raina and Andaer, especially her mother's youth in the First Age, and incidentally about dragons and warfare and the old languge Quenya. She told her own stories as well -- silly, simple things they sounded to her, about weather and animals and trees. But these too were made into songs, and when they were sung back to her, their beauty struck her silent.

She did not weep, though many other elves did. Tauriel's heart seemed suspended in a moment of starlight, watching her father walk away. Over and over she wished he had turned back, however briefly, so that once more she could have seen his eyes -- but what difference could it have made? His life had ended with his wife's, or at least with the completion of the battle they had begun together. Tauriel's life went on, in Thranduil's halls as she had agreed. The king set forth new tactics and plans, to guard their forest from evil and harm. The road would be watched constantly, beasts and birds begged for reports of all they saw or heard, and elves dispatched in every season to scour their land against any threat.

Tauriel returned to the benighted valley early in the summer. Four seasoned warriors went with her, and without ceremony, deferred to her judgment and direction. Despite herself, she found that put her at ease; she knew this place in a way no other could. A cold pool remained where the drake had vanished, dark and still, with no stream in and no outlet. They labored hard, digging a ditch to release the water, and lay stones to coax a fresh flow from a nearby spring. When next the moon rose full, the pond was alive with the voices of frogs, and dragonflies danced among new reeds at its surface. Tauriel waded in, the water never deeper than her thighs, and felt hard stone beneath her feet. This would never again be the landscape of her childhood, but it had become part of the natural wood once more. When the elves departed, they left a stone inscribed with her parents' names by the bank, and the burned-out woods around were alive with mushrooms, bluebirds, and flickers.

The group was not particularly feted upon their return, being but one of many. The thorough search had found out wargs' dens and moths that spread darkness like ink, and a many-eyed beast in a river had killed another elf before being slain itself. Thranduil himself was away, riding the forest's borders on an elk and laying enchantments around them like a wall. Tauriel helped gather the summer's harvest, then hunted meat through the fall, and the elves lay in stores as if for a future of famine. But when Thranduil returned he declared a feast by the light of the full cold moon.

Mirkwood's people drummed and howled, dancing around a bonfire that made a hot summer night against the snow. They made vows to animals, to rocks and trees and waterfalls, protective and devoted. They sang to one another, promising to share strength and skill and observation. The world would change, as elves willed it or not; yet by elves' will it would be kept as bright and safe as a world could be, and seen and remembered even long after that. They gorged and drank themselves half-mad on wine, savoring their survival and preparing for an unending fight ahead.


End file.
